Teen gets prison for 'messing with the white boys'

The 16-year-old from Bethlehem told police he was "only messing with the white boys," according to court records.

But Samuel J. Rodriguez is still headed to state prison for the scare he caused last summer for a group of swimmers in the Lehigh River in Bethlehem Township.

On July 1, Rodriguez stood on the riverbank, pulled out a silver gun, put a clip in it, cocked it and fired into the water, witnesses reported to police.

Then he approached a 15-year-old boy who was swimming and asked him who owned the purple bicycle parked on the land, police said. And when the swimmer indicated the bike was his, Rodriguez corrected him, said it wasn't anymore, and pulled the gun on him, police said.

For that, Northampton County Judge Craig Dally on Tuesday sentenced Rodriguez to 18 months to three years in prison, followed by five years of probation, after he earlier pleaded guilty as an adult to robbery and reckless endangerment.

In reaching his decision, Dally said that Rodriguez has amassed a "very storied" juvenile record that demonstrates he can't be rehabilitated through the youth justice system. A state penitentiary, Dally said, is where Rodriguez now belongs.

"I don't say that lightly, because you are 16 years of age," Dally told Rodriguez, who looks his young years — save for the orange prison jumpsuit he was in, and the tattoos of musical notes on his neck.

Defense attorney James Burke said the weapon Rodriguez had was a BB gun. Burke said Rodriguez never took the other youth's bike, and remained at the scene "hanging out" until police arrived and arrested him.

"I guess I played around too much," Rodriguez said in court. "My intentions were to just be friends with them."

Burke called his client "immature" and said that in years past, the outcome of his case might have been different.

"In a different era, his immaturity wouldn't be sending him to state prison," Burke said, adding: "The way I look at it, Arthur Fonzarelli on 'Happy Days' would now be in state prison."

Assistant District Attorney Robert Eyer disputed Burke's characterization of what happened, and asked Dally for a longer prison sentence than the judge handed down.

Eyer noted that Rodriguez has been arrested five times, the first when he was 11. In Northampton County Prison in his latest case, he was cited for assaulting another inmate, and again claimed he was just "joking around," Eyer said.

"He wants to be sentenced for immature play with a BB gun," Eyer said. "That's not what he admitted. That's not what happened."